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Careers Now: Behind a Layoff's Closed Doors DEAR JOYCE: In other words, if you're part of a downsizing, no one will think you were fired for cause, right? Who decides who will be laid off? When a company cuts employee ranks, must the employee sign an agreement not to sue in return for a severance package? -- J.A.L. You must anticipate a change in your future. And yes, you understand what I meant. PERCEPTIONS. Employers often seize the cover of a large-scale layoff to ditch weak performers. But a common opinion in this era of employment volatility is that lots of good people are cut loose for economic reasons, not because they were dead wood operating below par. That's why joblessness has largely lost its odor. LEGAL STRATEGY. Who decides? Before a big layoff, lawyers lay out a game plan for the company that instructs managers to look first at the positions the company thinks it can safely shed. At this step, managers are to pay no attention to any particular employees. The strategy allows employers to claim the cut-back was made without regard to anyone's race or gender. But in the next step, managers are required to look at the individuals who are about to be waved off, keeping an eye on a potential adverse impact on any protected group. If a lopsided outcome is obvious -- say, women, minorities or older workers are taking a disproportionate hit -- managers are told to retrace their steps and think again, making dead sure they have the documentation to defeat a discrimination challenge. RISKIEST TALENT POOL. Who's most likely to haul companies into court after a bloodletting? Older workers -- defined as those over 40, can you believe? -- are most likely to file a layoff-lamenting lawsuit claiming age discrimination. The company's response will be familiar: The reduction in force is due to economic reasons and that's why the higher-paid older workers had to go. Different but company-blameless rationales are articulated for women and minorities. SIGN OR ELSE. As for severance releases, if the company offers severance beyond that specified under company policy, the employer will ask the leaver to sign a release. Lawyers say a properly executed release in which the employee waives any right to sue the company in exchange for extra severance is probably enforceable. SUMMARY. When you feel a firing coming on, try to get lost in the crowd on the way out the door. Even if you depart a month before the others, consider yourself downsized. If you're asked to sign away future legal recourse as you're booted out with little but a parting pittance in a bandanna tied to a stick slung over your shoulder, delay until you confer with an employment lawyer.
Much as a San Diego chef who recently prepared feast food for a pantheon of visiting famous chefs in that city must have felt the pressure to excel, so too must Carrie McGraw in New York. McGraw is publicity director for Adams Media, publishers of a phenenomal new work authored by three pros who know every publicity trick in the book they've just written: Guerrilla Publicity: Hundreds of sure-fire tactics to get maximum sales for minimum dollars. The trio of authors -- Jay Conrad Levinson, Rick Frishman and Jill Lublin -- know virtually everything about substituting time, energy and imagination for money to get your word out. Levinson wrote the legendary book, Guerilla Marketing; Frishman is a guru who's advanced the causes of hundreds of bestselling authors, Hollywood celebs and business leaders; Lublin hosts a syndicated radio talk show, and also helps clients nab face time in mainstream media. Fearless Carrie McGraw says the trio has produced "the publicity bible for the decade." I agree.
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